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in Lawrenceville, GA offers a Technical Certificate of Credit, a Diploma, and an Associate Degree in Simulation/Game Development. We were contacted by several gaming companies in the North Georgia area and asked to work with them to develop a program to fill the urgent needs they had (and still have) for graduates with specific skills not taught anywhere here in Georgia. These companies had and have no trouble hiring good local talent for their artistic and graphic requirements; however, they had and still have no talent pool to draw on from this area. Virtually all have to pay huge bonus incentives to hire people away from other areas of the country that have more established gaming centers. We in conjunction with these game companies and consultation with other companies and schools and university’s across the country settled on a program very much like the one offered at Southern Methodist University.

GTC’s Simulation/Game Developer program consists of a sequence of courses designed to provide students with an understanding of the concepts, principles, and techniques required in the development of computer games. Program graduates will be competent in the general areas of humanities or fine arts, social or behavioral sciences, and natural sciences or mathematics, as well as in the technical areas of computer terminology and concepts, program design and development, game design, gaming artificial intelligence, and game physics. Program graduates will be qualified for employment as game designers and game programmers.

The specific technical courses are:

Three computer languages: PHP, Python, and C++

Two Game Development courses.

Two 2 and 3-D Physics courses.

Two Game Artificial Intelligence courses.

We are currently looking into articulation agreements with schools in the area that teach the art and graphic side of gaming to provide our and their students with the opportunity to expand their gaming education to include both these aspects.

As a resident of Georgia, I'm proud that my state hasn't attempted any anti-game legislation. From what I understand, the only laws relating to games are like this one or were done with the cooperation of the ESRB.

This most definately covers the gaming industry, and not just TV and movies. They already have a person in the Department of Economic Development who is actively seeking video game companies to come to Georgia. Mostly from outside of the country - the CCP acquisition of White Wolf comes to mind. CCP, the makers of Eve Online based in Iceland, wanted a US base, and they chose White Wolf's existing facility in Stone Mountain.

I also know that our governor took a trip to South Korea to attempt to convince several companies - including video game companies - to open up a US base of operations in Georgia. As far as I can tell, they are VERY serious about this.

Their big draw is the game design curriculum at Georgia Tech, Art Institute of Atlanta, and Savannah College of Art and Design. The Georgia game development scene has exploded in the past few years, not only with CCP/White Wolf, but with Gametap and Cartoon Network Game Studios all located here within Turner's conglomerate. My only PERSONAL worry is that just about every game studio I spoke with at the recent SIEGE conference here in Atlanta last year were making PC MMO's, which means that if we do see anything significant coming out of the Georgia game industry, it will be in 3-5 years at least. Nobody around here is working on console titles, they're all trying to make the next WoW.

God I'm SO glad that I'm not the only one who saw the peach & thought paedophile.

Also, if games make people kill and georgia is advocating the creation of games, does that make georgia complicit in the next murder where either the murderer or victim have had some tenuous & peripheral connection to games such as living near a game shop or having once played football which is often simulated in games?

Good to see another state stand up and take the opportunity of creating jobs and business of a $9 billion a year industry. Hopefully they will reap the rewards of inviting these folks into their state to work and live.

Problem is, the tax breaks are on individual projects where over $500,000 is spent. A lot of indie and educational game devs in the state won't qualify at all.

I hope the GA game industry grows in leaps and bounds though, because I'd love to come back to Atlanta in a few years. Its a good-sized city with lots to do and its a hell of a lot cheaper to live in than SF, LA, DC, NYC, and Boston. As it is, though, I'm moving to San Francisco after graduating from Georgia Tech this May.

Well, as developers based in Roswell, GA, we are obviously very happy to see the invesment incentives increased. While we do share the concern that the minimum investment level of $500,000 doesn't directly encourage start-ups, it is certainly useful for growing companies, such as ourselves. Also has to be a big draw to the much larger, established companies seeking to keep their costs down!

We've already started working with the local colleges and hope to do a lot more over the next coupe of years.

And, for Bobby Blackwolf: not ALL Georgia's developers are building MMOs! We build FPS for PC and Console - our first title was released a couple of years back, sold in stores throughout the US and is still on the store shelves in Europe. You obviously didn't attend my session at SIEGE :)

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PHX Corp: I launched my spotify account today, and I kinda went a little overboard with adding music03/31/2015 - 3:59pm

Sora-Chan: Con't. Games like AC are a pain to someone like me who likes to play games in order. So when a game gets too many releases too quickly, it puts me off. Only exceptions are games that have no interconnected underlying stories like the FF games.03/31/2015 - 2:53pm

Sora-Chan: Wikipedia has rarely let me down on matters like this. But yeah... AC needs a break.. like two.. or three... or eight years.03/31/2015 - 2:51pm

Conster: There's 9 already?! I think I played 1, 2, and the ones inbetween 2 and 3.03/31/2015 - 2:23pm

Sora-Chan: Con't There are now Nine... of just the main entries into the series. There are 13 more in the "other games" department.03/31/2015 - 2:15pm

Sora-Chan: I tried to get into AC. Was having a decent time with the first one, at which point they had already released three titles. Then a fourth came out... then a fifth... the wall kept growing before I could finish the first.03/31/2015 - 2:14pm

Daniel Lewis: I think ubisoft should give AC a break before it's milked to death,and i'm a big fan of the games03/31/2015 - 1:15pm

Daniel Lewis: The only thing said i disagree with is the final quote on Men's experiences are seen to be universal but women are gendered,though doesn't anita say that games with male protagonists are male power fantasies,so in turn both are gendered03/31/2015 - 1:08pm

Daniel Lewis: i found the video to be much better than any of the TvW series and it's about time the positive women are put in the spotlight03/31/2015 - 1:06pm

Daniel Lewis: So feministfrequency released a positive female character video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXmj2yJNUmQ03/31/2015 - 1:05pm

Daniel Lewis: I think the guy who made the direct leak said it was an april fools joke when a real one was announced03/31/2015 - 12:43pm

MaskedPixelante: No way Nintendo would let information like that get out. Remember, they shut down a memoir about the localization of Earthbound by enforcing a 20 year old NDA on the author.03/31/2015 - 12:42pm

james_fudge: Conster: the larger issue is that Ind. does not protect LGBTQ+ people under state law03/31/2015 - 12:11pm

PHX Corp: @MP I think it is confirmed(not an April Fools joke) http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/31/nintendo-direct-confirmed-for-wednesday-april-1st/03/31/2015 - 12:00pm

Conster: Apparently Pence intends to amend SB101 so denying service isn't allowed - without explicitly protecting LGBT+ and while still allowing the many other things you can get away with now if it's motivated by your religious beliefs.03/31/2015 - 11:53am

MaskedPixelante: http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/30/rumour-nintendo-direct-on-april-1st/ A supposed full leak of tomorrow's Nintendo Direct, so you can all laugh and laugh about how wrong it is.03/31/2015 - 11:35am

PHX Corp: http://kotaku.com/why-a-tekken-7-character-is-being-called-a-phoney-1694724959 Why a Tekken 7 Character Is Being Called a Phoney03/31/2015 - 10:08am

Michael Chandra: Argh. Anyway, I'm glad that move was made. Wonder if it counts, can he just declare it like that? 03/31/2015 - 9:27am